The Utopia track sees Drake reignite his feud with Pusha T, reference his lawsuit with Vogue, and take aim at an unsuspecting Pharrell, while Scott has some choice words for rumoured Kylie Jenner boyf Timothée Chalamet
Never ones to pass up the opportunity for a little drama, Drake and Travis Scott have used Scott’s new album Utopia as a springboard for some beef, both old and new. On the record’s seventh track “Meltdown” Drake reignited his long-standing feud with Pusha T and brought up his beef with Anna Wintour, while Scott took aim at Timothée Chalamet, rumoured new boyfriend of the Houston rapper’s ex Kylie Jenner.
The Drizzy-Pusha beef can be traced back to 2006, but its most recent iteration happened in 2018. When Pusha T released “Infrared”, accusing Drake of using a ghostwriter, Drake responded with “Duppy Freestyle”, suggesting the New Yorker had embellished his drug-dealing past. The exchange culminated on May 28 with Pusha’s “Story of Adidon”, revealing to the world that Drake had fathered a secret child named Adidon. Over a year later, on Christmas Day 2019, Rap Radar released a two-hour sit down interview with Drake, where the rapper referred to the 2018 exchange as his “first loss in the competitive sport of rapping.”
Now, Drake has seemingly returned to the ring, rekindling the feud on new track “Meltdown”. Near the end of his guest verse on the track, the Toronto native raps “I melt down the chains I bought from your boss/Give a fuck about all of that heritage shit.” Here, Drake addresses Pusha T directly, and refers to his “boss”, who many are suggesting is a reference to Pharrell Williams. Of course, Pharrell isn’t actually Pusha T’s boss, but the line takes a dig at their close working relationship, with Pharrell producing the rapper’s most recent album, and Pusha walking for Pharrell’s debut at Louis Vuitton.
Also, the chains that Drake bought and proceeded to “melt down” seems to refer to items from Pharrell’s own personal jewellery collection. In November 2022 a number of Pharrell’s pieces went up for sale on his auction site Joopiter, including the iconic $2.2 million pendant chain featuring diamond icons of N.E.R.D. Then, in January 2023, Drake could be seen sporting that very same chain in his video for “Jumbotron Shit Poppin”, which seemed to confirm the identity of its anonymous buyer.
The fact that Drake would (allegedly) melt down such a celebrated symbol in hip-hop history shows there’s no level his petty won’t sink to – as he says, he doesn’t “give a fuck about all of that heritage shit”. A 36-year-old father rapping about melting his opps chains is pretty lame if you ask us, but we move!
Elsewhere on “Meltdown”, in an arguably more surreal beef moment, Scott takes a shot at Chalamet and his alleged relationship with ex Kylie Jenner. At the close of the song’s second verse, Scott raps “Chocolate AP and chocolate the Vs/got the Willy Wonka factory/Burn a athlete like it's calories/Find another flame hot as me, bitch.”
This one is slightly more confusing, but Scott seems to be boasting about his chocolate coloured watch and jewellery collection (“AP” is the watch brand Audemars Piguet, while “Vs” are VVS diamonds) and proclaims himself to be the new Willy Wonka, a role that Chalamet is famously taking on in the origin story Wonka. Scott then goes on to add that someone – presumably Jenner – will struggle to find “another flame” as hot as him. Sorry Timmy!
In his verse, Drake also takes more direct aim at Pharrell, rapping “since V not around, the members done hung up the Louis/They not even wearing that shit”. The rapper implies that since ‘V’ isn’t around – a reference to the late Virgil Abloh – no one wants to wear Louis Vuitton since Pharrell took up Abloh’s old position. Until now, there’s never been much indication of a Drake/Pharrell beef, so these particular bars have taken some listeners by surprise. And considering Pharrell’s LV debut was near-universally praised, the bar doesn’t really pack the seismic punch ol’ Drizzy was hoping for.
Later on, Drake also references his ongoing beef with Anna Wintour. “You lucky Vogue was suing”, the Canadian raps, “cause I would’ve been with the Wassas in Paris and shit”. Here, Drake seems to be saying that if it wasn’t for his lawsuit with Condé Nast (who were suing him for using fake Vogue covers to promote his album) he would’ve been at Paris Fashion Week, where Pharrell and Pusha were attending the LV show. This reference to the lawsuit comes hot on the heels of Drake casting a zombie death troll version of Anna Wintour in the visuals for his latest tour, a move we presume didn’t impress the Vogue chief in the slightest.
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